Inside U.S. Strategic Command (pictures)

U.S. Strategic Command

OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, Neb. -- The scope of the entire U.S. military is vast, yet there is not a single military mission on Earth that is not supported in some way by U.S. Strategic Command.

Known as Stratcom and based at this base south of Omaha, Strategic Command is one of America's three functional combatant commands (and one of nine overall) and covers the whole planet, the depths of the oceans, and up to 22,000 nautical miles into space.

From operating B-2 bombers over Libya to space analysts looking into radiation fallout from Japan's 2011 earthquake and tsunami, Stratcom is involved.

As part of Road Trip 2013, CNET's Daniel Terdiman visited Stratcom for a look at its history, its present and its future.

Minuteman and Trident

Formerly known as Strategic Air Command (SAC) and based at Offutt since 1948 (after being founded in 1946 at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C.), Stratcom is a joint command, meaning members of all American military services are represented.

A Minuteman missile (right) and a Trident missile stand outside Stratcom headquarters as a reminder of its past and current missions.

Doomsday plane

One of Stratcom's many missions is the National Airborne Operations Center, known colloquially as the Doomsday plane, which military leaders would use to conduct operations in case of a crisis such as a nuclear war. There are four NAOC planes, which are operated by the 55th Air Wing at Offutt Air Force Base.

Field house

Now a huge military gym, this field house was once a factory where Enola Gay, and Bockscar, the B-29 bombers that dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima, Japan and Nagasaki, Japan during World War II, were modified to be able to carry those nuclear weapons.